Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Birthday Season and Valentine's Day

Lots of fun = little time to blog! :-)

The trip to the island off the coast for my birthday weekend was amazing. The best part? My sister flew in from NYC to surprise me!! Wow. I was asleep on Thursday night while DB had band rehearsal in the studio (I've trained myself to sleep through the loud music), ready to leave the next morning on the boat and I had a dream that there were all these people in my room, including my sister. It took me quite a while to wake up...and realize it wasn't a dream! It was so much fun to have her with us on the Birthday Adventure. And DB had kept it a secret since last August!!!! Special. :-)

We got to the island in the late morning and checked into our condo overlooking the ocean. Had some champagne, then went into town for a light lunch and some grocery shopping. I really wanted to cook dinner on Friday (the condos are expensive and I want to be in them as much as possible!) so I made delicious steak wrapped in bacon (treat), salad with homemade vinaigrette and roasted asparagus with tarragon. Yummy!

On my actual birthday (4th), I woke up early, excited for the day to begin! We went to brunch with friends who were already in town (this was my only really BAD meal of the weekend and I paid the price), then back to the condo to relax until our ziplining adventure at 2 in the afternoon.

Ziplining ROCKS. They first give you instruction, then take you in a bus up the mountain. At this place, there are 5 ziplines...you zip all the way down the mountain, across canyons, etc. As Birthday Girl, I was the first in our group to step off at the first zip -- everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and I flew away! It was literally AWESOME. The first step-off was a little scary but, after that, we all couldn't wait for the next one and were sad when they were all over.

After ziplining, we went back into town to meet some new arrivals at their hotel, had a glass of wine and some cheese and I got a hula hoop from a friend for my birthday! FUN.

I got all dressed up in my 6-inch booties for dinner at a really nice restaurant that night and was so blessed to be surrounded by dear friends on my special day.

Sunday, after breakfast, we had scheduled a whale-watching trip. We got into an impossibly tiny boat to head out into the ocean...I'm pretty happy that we didn't run into any whales! But we did run into dolphins and sea lions. The dolphins were just amazing...the water is so clear you could see them swimming under the boat right before they jumped out of the water!! At one point, we were in a pack of hundreds of them. It was, again, AWESOME.

So far 50 is...AWESOME. :-)

[I did gain some on my birthday weekend and it's not all gone yet...it still amazes me how much longer it takes to come off than to go on.]

Last weekend we celebrated two of the grandkids' birthdays and today I celebrate LOVE. Specifically, the Love of my Life, DB.

About Me

50-year-old Venice beach babe. Lost 120 pounds beginning in 1994 and kept most of it off for 10 years. I put more than I'm happy with back on and am now figuring my way back to maintenance in a lower range...without losing all my FUN. :-)